How Much Do You Love Timmy Turner?
by Lisa Von Cooper
Summary: It's a simple question, posed to the girls (and boys) of Dimmsdale and beyond. Read on to find out what their answers were, and decide for yourself who loves Timmy Turner the most. A series of oneshots.
1. Trixie Tang

**Author's Note: The premise of this collection is that each person has to answer the same question: "How much do you love Timmy Turner?" Every character gives their response in a chapter/drabble dedicated to them.**

 **I'm trying to write about the people Timmy has actually been shipped with by fans, but of course the FOP fandom is big and varied. If you think there's anyone I missed or a pairing you really want to read about, let me know in the reviews and I'll see what I can do.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **How Much Do You Love Timmy Turner?**

 **Trixie Tang**

Who? I've never heard of him. Hang on, let me check the yearbook. Turner, Turner…

Oh, there he is! Wait, that's _Timmy_ Turner? All this time I've been calling him Tommy! Why did no-one tell me?

Maybe they did. Maybe I was too popular to listen.

In case you can't tell, that was just an act. Of course I remember Timmy. I remember a lot of stuff about him. Like the time he won the Dimmy Award for comedy, seen by Tad and Chad as the second-lowest form of entertainment next to animation. Or the time he was going on and on about how much he loved Tootie while I was sitting right there. Don't ask me what _that_ was about.

Gosh, I – I think I know more about Timmy than anyone else. The not-popular kids are just empty bus seats to me. Timmy's different.

He's definitely one of the more … _persistent_ suitors. No matter how many times I push him away, he bounces back for more. It was annoying at first, sure. But as time went by, rejecting him became as natural as breathing. Nothing fazes the great and popular Trixie Tang.

And I hate that so much.

Sometimes, when I'm all by myself in my super-huge bedroom, I turn my cell phone off, lie back on the four-poster bed and daydream about what it would be like to be one of the misfits and go out with Timmy. I hate saying no to him. Just once, I'd like to say yes and see where it takes us.

But there's so much standing in our way.

I know for a fact that Veronica hates him.

At my last birthday, he came up to me and offered me a gift that wasn't wrapped up and put in a box. He wanted my friendship. And then – get this – he said he liked _Kissy Kissy Goo Goo_ AND _Skull Squisher_. I couldn't believe it. I'd never found a boy who liked both girl stuff and boy stuff. I'd never found a boy who liked me for me and not just the pretty exterior. I was _this_ close to telling him how I really felt. But I heard Veronica gasp, and I saw her face, and I saw the horror in those eyes … and I couldn't do it. I got Security to catapult him out of there.

That is my biggest regret.

Why did I even give in to her? It's not like she's some kind of love expert. I shouldn't let her control me. If anything, I control her! But at that moment, I was weak.

I guess some things never change.

At my first school, I was bullied. I wore glasses and had a lot of puppy fat. I looked like a total geek. The girls thought I was weird for liking the Crimson Chin so much and they wouldn't play with me. The boys were scared of me because I was a girl and they wouldn't let me join in any superhero games. I didn't fit in anywhere. Daddy always told me to ignore their comments, to stick my head up and smile, but beneath his kind face I noticed the worry in his eyes. I knew he wished he didn't have such a loser for a daughter.

Then Daddy's business took off, and we moved to Dimmsdale to be closer to the action. As we settled in, I completely reinvented myself. I ditched the glasses for contacts. I swapped the comic books and video games for tween magazines and hair products. I didn't go as far as dieting – I just started my growth spurt and so looked a lot slimmer than I felt. I changed everything. And it worked. I caught Veronica's attention, and then we wormed our way into Tad and Chad's clique, until eventually I outshone them all. I got everything I ever wanted.

Except true love.

I never really changed. I know that now. I just hid the Real Me beneath a thick layer of Fake Me. Timmy Turner was the first guy to peel away the veneer and see me for who I am: a diehard comics geek with a love of violent video games. And after he did that, he wasn't freaked out, not like the kids I'd put up with before. He still wanted to be my boyfriend. I wasn't a loser to him – I was a winner.

If only I'd earned my trophies rather than cheating my way to the top.

He won't stay away, not even after the whole thing with the catapult. He always gets back up and keeps trying to win me over, and I wish he wouldn't because it breaks my heart to keep saying no. That's why I pretend to not remember his name. It's to make him believe I don't care about him, when deep down I really do. It's to make him give up and leave me alone, when deep down I'm sure he won't.

How much do I love him? So much. So, so much.

But do I love him enough to risk everything I've worked for? Because this is the choice I have: I can either follow my heart, becoming a social outcast, a loser in Daddy's eyes, or I can stick with my popular friends and push him aside, kicking him to the ground once more.

Elementary school sucks sometimes. But love sucks even more.


	2. Tootie Valentine

**Author's Note: I'd like to thank willfrieden, SuperSonicBros123 and nightmaster000 for the nice reviews! To nightmaster000, I'm already thinking about writing a chapter for Chloe and how it would go. I'd forgotten about Mandie, though. Now** _ **that**_ **would be interesting.**

 **After Trixie Tang, who else was going to come next but Tootie? We don't know Vicky and Tootie's last name, but I've given them the surname Valentine, inspired by Tearatone Maystar's use of the surname for Vicky. I like it because it's alliterative but ironic in Vicky's case and fitting in Tootie's case.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Tootie Valentine**

Do I even need to answer that? Don't you already know how much I love Timmy Turner?

I love him to the moon and back! I love him more than fairy princesses! More than ballet and the Cream Puffs! MORE THAN MY OWN PARENTS!

Ahem.

Now I can kind of see why he took out that restraining order.

But I can't help myself! He's just that gorgeous! Have you seen him? Those eyes – such a brilliant shade of blue. That hair – I bet it would be really soft if I could get close enough to run my fingers through it. Those buck teeth – they could crack a nut open as easily as they crack my heart in two.

He's the last thing I see before I fall asleep, and he's my first thought when I wake up.

It wasn't a gradual thing, falling in love with Timmy Turner. It happened all at once, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. About two years ago, _she_ came back from one of her babysitting jobs, laughing to herself about a new kid she was torturing. She showed me a picture of him, a little guy in pink with rosy cheeks – and that was it. Timmy invaded me. He slipped under my skin, took over my thought processes and stole my heart.

I know, I know, it's not natural for a nine-year-old to talk like this! You don't have to tell me twice. Do you want to know something? I don't care. You can call me names and laugh at me, but I don't care. I have Timmy, and we're going to get married someday, and nothing will tear us apart.

Well … nearly nothing.

I've still got to keep an eye on _her_.

I haven't seen her birth certificate, but I think her real name is actually Icky. She just puts the V at the beginning because it's more normal. She wants to look like the perfect teenager. She's such a good actress she deserves to win an Oscar. She can show the parents what a wonderful babysitter she'd be, boasting about how _kind_ and _sweet_ and _thoughtful_ she is until they almost think they're seeing her with feathered wings and a halo.

Then they leave their child with her.

Then the devil horns come out.

It's happened a million times before. I make a friend, _she_ starts to babysit them, and suddenly the friend's not the same. When they see me in the playground, they're reminded of _her_ , and they scream and run away. She ruins everyone she meets.

She ruins everything I love, too.

Right now, it's just small stuff, like cutting the heads off my dolls. But I'm scared it'll get out of control and turn into something bigger, like cutting the head off – off –

NO! PUT THE CHAINSAW DOWN! DON'T HURT HIM! TIMMY! NOOOOOOOO!

Ugh. My wild imagination. It's a curse sometimes.

I can't let anything happen to him. I can't let my sister destroy him. I'm going to be a tough cookie and take her down. If life was a fairy tale, he'd be Prince Charming, she'd be the wicked witch, and I'd be the feisty princess who kicks the witch's butt, breaks the curse and rescues the prince from the tower.

But I guess some people don't want to be saved.

There are days when Timmy acts like he hates me. I sent him three invitations to my birthday party to make sure he'd come, and he still didn't show up. Before then, I'd followed him back to his house hoping to talk to him, and he told his friends to throw water balloons at me. And then there's the restraining order.

I can't lie and say it doesn't bother me, because it does. It weighs me down. It dulls my bright mood. One time, I went as far as grabbing a paddle and knocking him out just so I could give him mouth-to-mouth, just so I could have something, _anything_ , which was ours and ours alone.

Maybe I come on too strong.

What am I saying, "maybe?" I DEFINITELY come on too strong. That's what he does to me. He makes me lose control of my thoughts, my words, my actions. He makes me do things I never would for others.

There's a method to my madness, I swear. I'm trying to remind him that we Valentines aren't all bad. No, that human beings aren't all bad. I'm trying to teach him that even when those who are supposed to look after us let us down, even when people walk on by and pretend they don't see you crying, even when life poops all over you, someone out there cares about you and wants you to be happy and is standing up to the bad guys.

There are over seven billion people in the world, and at least one of them is bound to love you. For Timmy Turner, that one is me.

If you're out there, sweetie, if you're listening to what I'm saying, pay attention and try to remember every word. Stay strong, Timmy. Stay smart and funny and adorable, because I know you're all these things and more. Just don't fight me, please. I want to help you. I want to protect you from a world that hates the nice guys.

Even if it kills me, I will never let my sister break you. I promise.


	3. Vicky Valentine

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews – and thank you for the additional suggestions, nightmaster000!**

 **Vicky may seem like an unconventional choice for this sort of story, but the VicTim ship is actually my OTP. Just as Cosmo has green hair and Wanda has pink hair, so the fact that Vicky wears green and Timmy wears pink proves they were meant for each other. Sort of.**

 **Nevertheless, I find their relationship incredibly fascinating. Most of the time they seem to hate each other, but the show has moments (such as "Snow Bound," "Love at First Height," "Frenemy Mine" and "Oh, Brother!") that hint at an underlying concern for each other. I like to think that Vicky's sadistic tendencies are simply meant to cover up the slightly inappropriate feelings she has towards the boy who is six years younger than her. Maybe Vicky is the real mother of Tammy and Tommy in "Channel Chasers!"**

 **Enough rambling. Enjoy!**

 **But before that (don't worry, there will be a chapter, I promise), there's an FOP game called "Breakin' Da Rules" where Vicky's mother Nicky appears. She looks nothing like the mother we see on the show, so I'm going to try to explain why that is. I also hope to give a reason why the brother Vicky mentioned in the first** _ **Oh, Yeah! Cartoons**_ **short was never seen again.**

 **Vicky Valentine**

Is this a joke?

Seriously, is this a joke? What moron came up with this survey?

"How much do you love Timmy Turner?" That question assumes everyone's head-over-heels in love with the twerp. It doesn't allow for someone hating his guts.

Someone like ME!

He's the worst kid I've ever had to babysit. He pranks me all the time, he humiliates me in front of my crushes and he keeps trying to blow my sugar-sweet cover to his parents. (Plus, he once read my diary. Show me a girl who _wouldn't_ beat up a boy for reading her diary and I'll show you a pushover.) And he's always getting so dirty! It takes a screwdriver to clean his ears and a flamethrower to dry him off after a bath. But he still screams and cries and asks me why I have to do it. IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE FILTHY, TWERP!

I am the supreme ruler of hating Timmy.

Why am I so vicious? I don't know! I just am, okay? It's definitely NOT to cover up how much I want to give him a big hug and cry on his shoulder and never let him go. It's definitely NOT a distraction from the feelings I don't understand. No siree bob.

I'm not fooling anyone, am I? I'm barely fooling myself.

I don't mean to be mean to him. I just am. And I … I wish I wasn't.

I'm not sure how it happened – how I started, well, liking the twerp. But it's something to do with that cave we were trapped in when his dad took us to that ski resort. We were freezing, and I was frightened, and he was furious. I was all set to pin the blame on him, the way I blame him for wrecking the Turners' house. But he wasn't taking it this time. He gave me this grand speech about what an awful human being I was. And there's one part in particular that always jabs at my mind when I recall it.

" _If I go down, at least you're going down with me!"_

I knew I hated his guts, but I had no idea how much he disliked me in return. Well, now I know. He would have been very happy to see me die in that cave, leaving an icy corpse behind. That's how much he hated me.

That's also kind of why he's the first kid I felt guilty about torturing. The only kid, actually.

Why do I torment him more than anyone else? And what pushed me towards feeling sorry for him and not one of the other little brats?

Everyone has a light. I'm not talking about how everyone carries a flashlight or something like that. I'm talking about this light that's within them. Yeah, it doesn't make that much sense. I think I mean – well, everyone has something that makes them special. It could be sports, or poetry, or babysitting. When they do that special thing, they shine. There's this light inside Timmy as well, the brightest I've ever seen. It's almost blinding. Not because he's sporty or poetic or a fantastic babysitter (like me – NOT), but because he's so darn nice to everyone else who isn't me.

I notice it the most when he's around my stepsister. He used to push her away when she tried to hug him, but he's toned it down now. He even kissed her on Valentine's Day. (Yep, it turns out Tootie has more luck with boys than I do.) When that happened, it was like the Sun was rising for the second time that day. That light is a sign of what a good person he is, and it sickens me.

I'll never have such a bright, beautiful light. Why not? Am I diseased? Am I an alien? Was I hit in the head as a baby? (Actually, I wouldn't put it past her. She despised me from the moment I was born.) Whatever it was, I never developed that kindness which everyone else apparently has. I can't care that much about anyone. I don't have a warm glow. The most I can muster up is a flickering candle.

When this babysitting gig started, I had my chance to put out the other lights around me so I wouldn't feel so bad about my own gloom. You know, like those women who make themselves feel thinner by hanging out with fat friends. But Timmy Turner is indestructible. And now I'm having second thoughts about what I'm doing.

I'm going to share a secret. And if you tell anyone what I'm about to say, I will come to your house with a mace and a creepy organist to set the mood while I slowly kill you. You have been warned.

The thing is … I'm jealous of Timmy.

Hear me out, okay? He has girls throwing themselves at his feet and goldfish that don't die on him and parents who are clueless about parenting but don't love him less because of it. I'm never going to have anything like that. I can't get a guy to stay with me unless I tie him up. Doidle was great until he needed to be "fixed" (read: neutered), and now he's no fun at all because he bites me too much. As for my mother…

Don't even talk to me about Nicky Valentine. I hate her. She never gave a hoot about me. She never hugged me when I got good grades or put a Band-Aid on my knee when I fell off my skateboard. She made me do the dishes and clean the toilet, and my so-called reward was going to bed early. She even melted down my first sports trophy to make herself a necklace. (It was only a Participation trophy, but it still made me cry.)

She wasn't much kinder to Dad, either. They argued all the time, usually about me. He wanted to stand up for me, but she kept telling him he was a useless waste of space, and he welled up and agreed with her, the coward. That's why he started spending so much time with Judy. He left me alone with _Nicky_ , knowing pretty darn well what she was capable of, while he frolicked through the flowers with some dork he met at a coffee shop.

The times when he wasn't there to defend me were the times when she hit me the hardest.

When Nicky found out about this other woman, she called Dad and said he'd be in so much trouble when he got home. So he never went home. He and Judy ran away. He didn't even come back when Nicky said she was pregnant again. (I don't know what my brother Todd is doing these days. He and Nicky can crawl into a hole and die for all I care.)

I almost thought Dad had forgotten to take me with him. But he didn't; he snuck into my room in the middle of the night and drove me to their new place while I was sleeping. It's a miracle he found it in his heart to save me.

Just after I turned seven, Gertrude was born. A.K.A. Tootie. A.K.A. the original twerpette. A.K.A. the stepsister I wish was never born. I bet Dad can't believe his luck. Now the Valentine family has a man and a woman who care for each other and a daughter born out of love. It's the prefect family unit.

Except for me.

I look like Nicky, I sound like Nicky – come on, we even have rhyming names. Vicky and Nicky, both of them icky. I don't fit anywhere in this happy ending. I'm a reminder of everything bad that happened before. I'm like a zit on a model's face, a glitch in a video game, a typo in a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

No-one understands me. No-one has a hope of understanding me until they feel what I felt: the fear, the hurt, the shame, the sense of abandonment.

When the kids beg me for a reason why I make them do chores and give me pedicures, I tell them I'm showing them how cruel the world is now so it doesn't shock them later. But I'm also secretly searching for someone who gets me, for someone who'll sympathise with me, for someone who doesn't call me a monster without trying to figure out _why_ I'm a monster.

Maybe Timmy Turner is that person. Maybe some of his light will shine on me. Maybe, if we were friends, or at least acquaintances, I won't be such an evil, lying, troublemaking shrew.

Yeah, right. Like _that's_ going to happen. I'm too far gone.


	4. Veronica Star

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! ArendAlphaEagle, you presume correctly, because this chapter is all about Veronica. Enjoy! See if you can spot the "Channel Chasers" reference.**

 **Veronica Star**

First of all, my name is not Veronica Star. It's Trixie Tang. I'M TRIXIE!

Second … you know, my best friend, the original Trixie Tang, once asked me a similar question. We were chatting online, and this particular email came right out of the blue. Did I think Timmy Turner was neat?

I wanted to reply, "My love for him burns with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns!" But I couldn't tell Trixie that. It was too poetic to be something a ditzy popular girl could believably come up with. And it sounded kind of weird when I said it out loud to myself. So I settled for, "No way, he's gross."

I settled for a lie.

What's so great about Timmy? Well, he's kind of cute, for one thing. I'm a sucker for the brunettes. And those teeth … when Chip Skylark wrote "My Shiny Teeth and Me," I bet he had Timmy in mind.

More amazing than that, though, is his courage. The courage to be his uncool self and stick by his uncool friends through thick and thin. The courage to mumble to his stationery in public and ignore the weird looks he gets. The courage to keep asking Trixie out after being rejected so many times. I don't know how he does it. I'd die if I was caught wearing the wrong clothes or talking to the wrong things or flirting with the wrong guy.

Not long ago, he approached us in the cafeteria and said, "Hi, Trixie." Not, "Hi, guys," or even, "Hi, Trixie and Veronica," just, "Hi, Trixie." He barely noticed me at all; his eyes were fixed on the Queen Bee. She gave me a sidelong glance and asked, "Why is this loser talking to me?"

I didn't answer. I could barely hear the question, let alone come up with an answer. All I could think was, "Why _isn't_ that loser talking to me?" And that was just one of many times he's fallen under Trixie's spell and completely ignored me.

When we're alone, just the two of us, Trixie and I gossip. Timmy nearly always comes up in conversation, accidentally on purpose. After I jog her memory, Trixie says she's out of his league, and I nod and agree with her – on the outside. On the inside, my heart is racing and I'm trying not to let it show. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I'm scarily close to falling down _into_ his league. If things had turned out a little differently, I could have been hanging out with his group of friends every day instead of Trixie's.

Face it, I'm the least popular of the popular kids. I'm such a klutz! I'm always tripping over something or walking into a wall because I don't look where I'm going. I'm watching my best friend, walking in step with her, conscious of how my arms should swing … I never notice the obstacle right in front of me. D'oh! Tad and Chad call me "the crazy one" of the group. Sure, I'm rich, so that makes up for it a little, but I'm not as rich as the others – by which I mean I love shopping but don't live in a mansion.

I also have autism. I'm not as good at socialising and talking as other people. Which is ironic, considering what a great people person the popular girl is supposed to be. I'm getting better – "Practice makes perfect" and all that jazz – but I still can't keep up with Trixie or Tad or Chad. They leap in with stuff to say while I'm still tongue-tied trying to get my thoughts in order. They tell each other jokes that I don't get. They mock the not-popular kids for reasons I can't see, such as someone liking cartoons, which they call "the lowest form of entertainment." I want to yell at them, "They're not low! They're great if you just give them a chance!" But I'm not that brave. I'm not as brave as Timmy.

It all bugs me so much. It's like they're watching _The Kissy Kissy Goo Goo Romance Hour_ while I'm tuned in to _The Feldmans_. Yeah, so what if all the adults are stupid? It's still funny! I don't care what the haters say about the steep decline in quality!

In case you can't tell, I really like _The Feldmans_.

I haven't told my friends about my condition. They wouldn't understand. They'd think I'm weirder than I already seem. They probably don't even know what autism is. But I wouldn't mind telling Timmy someday. He'd understand, I think. I hope.

Since I realised how charming he was, my shopping habits changed completely. I used to focus on bagging more _Feldmans_ merchandise, with the occasional tween magazine to keep up with fashion and all that. Now, though, I've been a girl on a mission. I've searched high and low for Trixie's favourite brand of eyeliner, for clothes that look like hers but are actually within my price range, for wigs that match her hair exactly. I use spreadsheets to compare stores, and then I go out and buy the best-quality thing. You can't put a price on true love, after all.

I'm always the girl sitting on the side-lines, completely unnoticed. It's been that way since Trixie moved to Dimmsdale years ago. Well, I'm tired of it. I know how much Timmy wants Trixie, but I also know he can't have her because she looks down on him. So if he can't have her, he'll probably want the next best thing. He'll want a girl who looks like Trixie, talks like Trixie, acts like Trixie.

I wish that girl was me.

I'm going to make my wish come true. And the trick is not to stand out, but to blend in.

He'll never look my way until I'm as pretty and popular as Trixie. I'll never have him in my clutches unless I'm not myself. That's why I've been copying my best friend so closely. That's why I'm driven half-mad with desperation. But as Margot Feldman once said to her daughter Eliza, "It doesn't matter how you feel inside … it's what shows up on the surface that counts." I'm going to give myself the prettiest surface he's ever seen, and then he'll have to notice me.

Oh, Trixie…

WHY. CAN'T. I. BE. _YOU?_


	5. Chloe Carmichael

**Author's Note: Chloe Carmichael is a rather controversial character, being new to the tenth series. I've seen "The Big Fairy Share Scare," and while it's hardly up there with the classic episodes, it still made me giggle in places. (I liked Cosmo's line, "Oh, sweet, naïve, simple-minded Timmy. Don't you get it? 'Cause I don't get it. Wanda?") I don't hate Chloe, either. Compared to Trixie's desperation for compliments, Tootie's obsession with Timmy, Vicky's sadism and Veronica's identity crisis, Chloe is the most normal girl on the show, so maybe some female viewers will be able to identify with her.**

 **At the time of writing, I hear there's going to be an episode where we see Chloe's parents, but that hasn't aired yet, so I've invented most of her backstory. Enjoy this chapter!**

 **Chloe Carmichael**

Gee, isn't it a little early to be talking about love? I've only just moved in next door to him and you're already asking if I love him! Well, if you're that curious, I'll answer as honestly as I can.

I wouldn't mind becoming one of his special friends.

It's not much, but like I said, it's too soon to think of anything else.

We met in the most unlikely of circumstances. I'd moved to a nice but strange new place, still trying to forget the grief of the previous year. What happened? Let's just say I've had a pretty rough time.

So the day I found out I had two fairy godparents ready to grant my every wish and make me happy – in a word, it was AMAZING! Those guys were so cool! Wanda seemed really kind and sympathetic, and Cosmo … well, he wasn't so bad once he figured out what was going on. And what was really fascinating is that there were so many more magical species to learn about – anti-fairies and pixies and genies and leprechauns and elves and sprites and imps and gnomes and dwarfs and mermaids and harpies and dragons and unicorns and probably hundreds of others I hadn't heard of yet!

There was just one little smudge on the perfect picture. And the smudge had buck teeth and a pink hat.

Timmy tried everything to get out of this fairy share scheme. He wished he was as far away from me as possible. He told me I could have the fairies on Fridays and then wished Fridays didn't exist. He wished for a robot to replace his fairies while they were with me. When he talked to me, he was either rolling his eyes and being sarcastic or screeching in my face so I couldn't catch what he was saying. It was almost as if he was my enemy. As if he believed I was stealing something precious from him. I was used to boys and girls instantly liking me, but not someone instantly hating me. I didn't know how to react.

Looking back, I guess it was hard for him to share the things he's had to himself for so long. I guess sharing is hard for everybody. (Except for me.) But behind that stubborn, selfish exterior, I sought that new best friend just crying out to be free. I didn't give up on us. That's not the Carmichael way.

You know, I think the Carmichael way is working. I think I might finally be teasing out his good side. He saved me from falling to my death and being eaten by mole people (and then he was really grateful when I saved his life in return). He's letting me have Cosmo and Wanda more often. He's learnt how to pronounce the word "share" without glitching.

It all means I can now find a lot of reasons to like Timmy Turner.

He's the only boy who bothered to follow up our friendship after the initial lemon-squares-and-gift-certificates party. Most of the other kids turned up for the free gifts, and then two things happened: they either asked for more stuff and yelled at me when I didn't give it to them, or they never got back to me at all. Timmy's got more sticking power. He doesn't abandon his friends.

He's eager to help out, too. If I'm suddenly going to be entrusted with nearly-omnipotent parents who can grant life-altering wishes, I need to do a bit of thinking before making such wishes. That's where Timmy comes in. He's had more time with Cosmo and Wanda, and he's made all the mistakes it's possible to make so I don't have to. He's helping me learn the ropes of godchildhood. I've turned Da Rules into flashcards and I'm making him test me so I don't accidentally break them. If he thinks it's weird to make flashcards of everything, he hasn't said it.

More importantly, though, Timmy knows about my deepest darkest secret. He knows what my life was like before I came to Dimmsdale.

I wish that foul-smelling thing had never crawled out of the bay to destroy our city. I wish I hadn't taken that thorn out of its foot. Why did I do that?

Everyone sees me as "the little lass who saved the world from a horrifying monster created by radiation." True, I helped the military to track it down and tranquillise it, but the time between taking the thorn out and taking out the monster was the worst of my life. Because when his foot healed up, it meant he could destroy even more of the city.

Because that brute squashed my big sister Cathy.

Because I killed my big sister.

My parents moved us to Dimmsdale because my ruined birthplace held too many memories. They're all right, but they're not exactly great with kids. They're both very high-powered businesspeople, and they don't always have enough time to feed me or help me with homework or … take any interest in my life, really. That was Cathy's job. I suspect they secretly loathe me for being indirectly responsible for Cathy's death.

Maybe that's why they hire Vicky to look after me when I get home from school and they're still at the office.

Can my life get any worse? I tried too hard to fix things and I ended up annoying everyone around me, destroying cities and hurting innocent people. And my punishment is spending my evenings trapped in the house with a teenager who makes me do the laundry BY HAND while she watches TV. Cathy was intelligent and imaginative and never minded playing with me or helping me with science projects. She was awesome. Vicky thinks chasing children with a knife is fun. She's evil. She's like an inferior replacement for Cathy.

I've done a pretty good job of putting on a happy face for the outside world, but I can actually be kind of a train wreck. I screw up all the time and I don't have my best friend anymore and I hate myself. No-one wants to play with a girl who screws up all the time and kills her friends and hates herself. Except Timmy. He knows the truth about me, he knows that I'm not as perfect as I seem, and he's still here despite everything. There's hope for us.

There's hope for me.


	6. Molly Wright

**Author's Note: For the uninitiated, in the episode "Wishing Well," Timmy was diagnosed with Over-Wishing Disorder and sent to a facility where he had to learn to solve his problems without magic. Molly was another child there who teamed up with him to escape. The surname Wright was used for Molly by DeviantArt's kpendragon. (Check out her superverse artwork – it's amazing.)**

 **Molly is voiced by Grey DeLisle, along with Tootie, Vicky and Veronica, so she's the fourth DeLisle girl so far! Enjoy!**

 **Molly Wright**

"Love?" We met, like, once. And we weren't exactly the best of friends. When you've been pulled out of your normal life and locked away, your highest priority isn't becoming BFFs with your inmates, it's getting the heck out of there.

Stupid anklets. Stupid laser barriers. Stupid everything.

I saw the two guys I had to share my cell with, and my heart sank. I wished they would all go away. Dwight was a wimp, plain and simple. He had this weird habit of crying whenever Jorgen so much as raised his voice. Wimpy boys stink. As for Timmy, he looked like such a dork, but he acted like such a jock. When I gave him one of my trademark jibes, he talked back. His insults were so much better than mine, and it bugged me more than it should have done. Arrogant boys stink.

All boys stink.

So what if I hugged him over Dwight when the snakes in the Funhouse freaked me out? That's hardly true love. Dwight was just super-creepy and I wanted to get away from him. Would you want to hug a guy with an irrational fear of harpoons? No, thank you.

Timmy had more comforting vibes.

Did I say that out loud?

For goodness' sake! Why am I thinking about Timmy so much? I'm a strong independent women who don't need no man. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. That's what Mom always tells me. She should know. She's never been on good terms with the men in her life.

I can't help it, though. Walking down the street, I can't help drifting away from the real world and daydreaming about Timmy, even if I do risk slipping into some violent gang's territory without realising it. Timmy wasn't nearly as bad as some of the guys I've met in my lifetime. He was the one who planned our escape. He was motivational when I felt like giving up. He gave me a shred of hope that not all men are pigs.

Maybe I should thank that jarhead Jorgen for sending me to Wishing Well. But that still doesn't mean I don't think it's a stupid idea. That Over-Wishing Disorder guff? All lies. There's no such thing.

First, I needed to make all those wishes to protect myself from the thugs. I live in a rough part of town. It's controlled by two gangs, the Hounds and the Terriers. They're childish names, but they don't play games. At best, the young ones smoke outside people's open windows just to tick them off. At worst, the older guys attack each other with knives and guns. I can't say for sure, but every kid under ten who lives there needs fairy godparents just to make it to school alive. Me, I save myself a lot of trouble by steering clear of the Learn Shack and doing my thing. When I first got Swizzle I wished I was super-smart, so it's not like I'm missing out on anything.

Second, I needed to make all those wishes because otherwise I'd have to spend money, and we don't have a lot of money. Fairies can't put more green in your pocket, but no-one respects you if you don't get yourself some accessories. Street cred matters. Plus, if I didn't have Swizzle, I'd have to spend a year and a day at the gym. That's another thing. If you're not rich, you'd better be tough. If you're neither, they screw you over. I rely on Swizzle to be both.

Third, I needed to make all those wishes to survive Francis. Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention it? That bully Francis? He's my big brother. He's the kind of guy who only goes to school to see how many kids he can beat up in a day. He lives with Dad, far away from Mom and me, but he drops in every other week just to knock me down and make me feel small. He's the one I have to thank for my fear of snakes. When we were both much younger, Mom scraped together enough dough for a trip to the zoo, and – get this – _he let all the snakes out of their enclosure._ The worst thing is the zoo never found them all. They're still out there, looking for me. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

In short, Francis is nothing like Timmy. Francis punches me; Timmy hugs me. Francis tells me I'll never succeed; Timmy tells me I can do it. Francis doesn't understand how terrifying it is to have all that ferocity bearing down on you; Timmy gets it because of his wicked babysitter. He told me all about Vicky after we graduated from Wishing Well. She sounds like a butthole. I ought to go over there and give her a taste of her own medicine!

Huh. Maybe I do miss him. A little.

A woman may need a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but if she _wants_ a man like a fish wants to swim, and no-one's brainwashing her or ordering her to want a man, is it so wrong to go after him?

I wonder what Ol' Timbucktooth is doing now. I wonder if he'd mind if I dropped by.

Hey, Swizzle! I wish I could see Timmy again!


	7. Missy Tidwell

**Author's Note: Well, nightmaster000, I do have a theory about who sent the question to all those girls … but you'll have to wait a bit to see who it is.**

 **Missy has had only one appearance in the show, in "Finding Emo," where Timmy wished he was an emo to make her like him. The surname Tidwell is used for Veronica on parts of the** _ **Fairly OddParents**_ **Wiki, but many fans of the show think Veronica's surname is actually Star, so I've given the name Tidwell to Missy instead.**

 **Part of this chapter was inspired by fallenjrblue's artwork on DeviantArt, particularly the rivalry. You'll see what I mean below. Enjoy!**

 **Missy Tidwell**

Wow. Uh, I love him quite a bit, I guess. Enough that I was strangely glad I lost my cell phone that day.

When I got home from school, there was an answerphone message waiting for me; it was rushed and garbled, but after the eleventh replay, I realised it was Timmy telling me where his house was so I could pick up my cell phone. I hadn't even realised it had disappeared! The good news is, I found him and got my cell phone back. The bad news is, Timmy was choking on a moth and couldn't really talk to me.

Which was a shame, because I kind of wanted to find out if he sounded as cute as he looked.

Since then, I noticed a few little changes. He always had a reputation as a "weirdo" for talking to his school supplies, but now he was doing it more and more often, to the point where even his friends were being ignored. He did it with sneaky glances from side-to-side, and I tried not to count how many times those bright blue eyes fell on me.

There was something else that intrigued me. I told a boy named Brandon how cool he was for playing so many sports. It was just a compliment. I wouldn't have thought anyone could read much into it. Not long after, Timmy signed up for the school football team. You know, the one with the quarterback who looks like a gorilla and is rumoured to actually _be_ a gorilla. Let's just say that watching them train together was not pretty.

While Timmy's head was buried in dirt, I heard a mumbled, "Please tell me Missy didn't see that." I was curious. Was he going through this torture … for me? Was he willing to be pounded into the ground by a crazed gorilla just to be seen as cool in my eyes?

I tested my theory. I listened to one of Dakota's sad songs, and when he'd finished (a relief to us all because it was such a dirge), I told him it was cool that he was so sensitive. A little while later, Timmy showed up with a cosy sweater and a guitar and a song he'd written for me. But I never got to hear it because the strings hurt his fingers and he ran away crying. He must have misunderstood the word "sensitive."

But I needed to be sure he was serious about me. So I asked that emo kid Barnaby if he wanted to be my lab partner, keeping an eye on Timmy, silently willing Barnaby to refuse. I knew for a fact that most boys can't stand him. To be honest, neither do I; I gave him a chance when I first moved here, but he's pretentious, phony and way too full of himself. Only a guy who REALLY liked me would want to copy Barnaby to win my heart.

Sure enough, I found Timmy with dyed black hair lying in the middle of the hallway like he didn't care about anything. I couldn't help smirking.

In a way, it's cute that he was willing to change his whole personality just to impress me. But at the end of the day, I grew tired of the games. I just wanted to spend time with Timmy. Not Timmy the jock, or Timmy the sensitive guy, or Timmy the emo. Just Timmy.

I like a guy who can be himself.

I think he figured it out in the end. The next day, he was back to his usual pink-hatted self, and we've made a lot more progress. We can have a conversation where he isn't twitching or convulsing all the time. He's letting me hang out with his friends. I'm the only girl they talk to, but it doesn't matter because they all seem to like me so far. I gave Elmer some SooperSoothe boil cream for his birthday, and he hasn't stopped thanking me for it. It was three months ago, Elmer!

Things are great so far. I'd like to keep hanging out with Timmy, maybe even ask him to see a movie with me – just the two of us, without the other guys there. But there's one thing stopping me. Well, one girl.

Her name is Tootie.

She creeps me out. She worms her way into our friendship group when it's clear that no-one wants her there. I've noticed the desperate way she stares at Timmy, wide-eyed and beaming. I've noticed the way he refuses to return her gaze. And I also noticed (too late) the whoopee cushion she planted on my chair on April Fool's Day. If I ever tried to take Timmy to the movies, she would probably follow us into the theatre, sit behind us and chew her popcorn really loudly.

I can't relax around Timmy in case she tries to sabotage us.

I see her on the playground, sitting under a tree, pulling the petals off a daisy (because she has no respect for the environment), saying, "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…" Sometimes I just want to go up to her and say, "Stop right there, honey. You're wasting your time. He loves you _not_." And then I want to pick her up and throw her over the hills so she's far, far away from Dimmsdale and won't bother us anymore.

I don't, though. I don't have the upper body strength. And I'm pretty sure doing that would get me expelled.

It's not normal for a girl to irritate me this much. I'm Missy Tidwell, friend to all. Yet there's something about the way she follows Timmy around, like a blindly-obedient puppy, that sickens me.

Tootie, have you ever thought about _why_ Timmy begs you to leave him alone? Have you ever thought about _why_ he runs away from you? Have you ever thought about _why_ he took out that restraining order against you? You have to treat a boy like an actual person, with free will and a choice in the matter, if you want to stand a chance of going on a date with him. Your attempts to make him love you only make him hate you even more.

And if you don't cool it soon, I'll have to cool it for you.

I can be so sweet and good that bluebirds sing when I walk past. But I have a dark and twisted side that makes ferocious bears do my bidding. Don't try to scare me away with stories of your evil big sister. I _will_ take on Vicky if I have to. If I absolutely have to.

You'd better watch out, Tootie.


	8. Carly MacFarlane

**Author's Note: Carly's one appearance was in "Five Days of F.L.A.R.G." The "A" stood for Amnesia, and Timmy found himself with Carly's name in a heart tattooed on his chest. He later bumped into Carly and saw his name in a heart tattooed on her arm, but he ran away before we found out any more.**

 **The surname MacFarlane is a reference to Seth MacFarlane, creator of** _ **Family Guy**_ **and a friend of Butch Hartman. There's a** _ **Family Guy**_ **character called Dr Hartman, presumably named after Butch Hartman, so I've now named a** _ **Fairly OddParents**_ **character after Seth MacFarlane. I also noticed that Carly and Missy have similarly-shaped curls of hair in front of their ears… Enjoy!**

 **Carly MacFarlane**

I wouldn't call it "love." Friendship, maybe. An acquaintance, at the very least. He's a friend of a friend. When my half-sister Missy brings him to our house, he usually waves to me and says, "Hi, Carly." The tone of voice is light, airy. It's the tone of voice he would use for anyone he saw on the street. He's just that cheerful, just that friendly. Yet there's something behind the greeting, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Fear? No, that's too strong a word. Confusion? Perhaps.

He may not remember everything, but I do.

The party at the Dimmsdale Dump was a blast. Log flumes, ice cream, Chip Skylark in concert … I couldn't have wished for anything more fun. Our parents didn't come with us; it was just me and Missy, running from attraction to attraction like kids in a candy shop. We were having an amazing time.

And then I clocked Timmy Turner, breezing along with two other boys. There was nothing significant about that moment, no slowing of time, no fireworks being set off. Missy and I just approached and introduced ourselves, and they did the same. That's how any relationship normally starts, right?

The heart-shaped tattoos were only temporary. They were done for a dare. Take it from me, practically everything silly a sixteen-year-old girl does is done for a dare. I forgot who thought of it. We were high on chocolate ice cream and rollercoaster-induced euphoria. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As the festivities died down, Timmy and I somehow wandered away from the group – no, this is not what you think it is, I swear – and we flopped onto a bench and spilled out our problems, over-emotional from all that candy. He told me how mean Vicky was to him when she babysat him, making him do the dishes and massage her stinky feet. I told her how mean she was to me at high school, heckling me at cheer practice and framing me for stuff I didn't do. We opened up. We shared our deepest fears. We made each other laugh and pushed the bad thoughts back into the furthest corners of our minds. That was when I knew we were firm friends.

But that was also before we went our separate ways.

And this – this casual greeting in the hallway when he's walked Missy home – is most definitely after.

That wasn't even the second time we met after the party. We found each other again only the next day, in the Women's Department of my favourite clothes store. I was trying on a super-cool pink dress, and he said hello and introduced himself. I said, "Timmy?" and wondered why he was acting like we were meeting for the first time. He said, "Carly?" and revealed the tattoo on his chest. Our eyes met. Anything could have happened next. There was a moment of possibility…

But he ran away.

I'll never understand why he did that. Was there another girl? Was his mind on something bigger, something giving him sleepless nights, making him not quite himself? Or did he not even recognise me at all?

I left the store with no new dresses and a heavy heart.

That would have been the end of it all. I could have shrugged off our brief moment of shared vulnerability as just that: a moment that simply wasn't meant to last any longer. I could have got on with my life – if it wasn't for one little thing.

Missy.

For some reason, she didn't remember that day, either. I've asked around about the party at the dump, and I get the same response each time: everyone looks at me as if I've grown a second head. I often feel like I'm the only one in the world who remembers. Like we were test subjects and our memories were supposed to be wiped, but I slipped through the system, and now I know too much.

When Missy went over to Timmy's house to retrieve her lost cell phone, it must have been like getting to know him for the second time. As the days went by, things just got worse. Missy told me everything about him at dinner – how he went from a jock to a sensitive guy to an emo in less than twenty-four hours just to try to win her over. She giggled to herself as she told the full story, oblivious to my furiously-scowling face across the table.

A few weeks later, the first time he came over and waved to me and said, "Hi, Carly," my suspicions were confirmed. He knew who I was. He knew we had fun at the party together. What he couldn't process was precisely how much fun we had. And that freaked him out, so he wouldn't let himself near me.

I tried everything I could to jog Timmy's memory of me, to reassure him that what happened was nothing big or frightening. I bought him chocolate ice cream. I bought him the latest Chip Skylark CD. I invited him on a trip to Adrenaland (which has epic log flumes) with my girlfriends. I even got another temporary tattoo, exactly the same as the one I had before. But all it achieved was a worried phone call from his parents and a stern talking-to from my mom.

That's another thing. I should be happy for Missy when she makes good friends because she's spending time with people she likes. But I hate that she can play with Timmy as much as she wants and no-one bats an eyelid, whereas I'll never be able to even give him a present without some grown-up fretting about his safety or whatever. I'm not that kind of person. I'm responsible. I'm easy-going. I'm honest. Why aren't teenagers and kids allowed to be friends, anyway?

I nearly had a buddy, and he slipped out of my grasp. We could have had something good going on, and now I'll never know how it would have progressed.

I can't forget that day. I'll never forget that day.

It's all I have left of Timmy.


	9. Anti-Cosmo Anti-Cosma

**Author's Note: Well, this next story has been a long time coming! If you had told me a month ago that Anti-Cosmo would become one of my new favourite FOP characters, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have dismissed him as a stereotypical evil genius with a clichéd British accent. But now I've realised how much he fascinates me as a villain; he's creepy and manipulative, but alluring in a way that only a special kind of villain can be. He's also the focus of some amazing fanfics (such as "My Evil Godchild," "Victim of Circumstance" and "The Rotting Gardens") and pieces of fanart (check out Hopemaydie, MasterFranny and Elixirmy on DeviantArt). These have helped me come around to the idea of exploring the relationship he has with "Timothy".**

 **If you're interested, I've written another story starring Anti-Cosmo called "What Would I Give?" For now, I hope you like hearing what he has to say in this oneshot!**

 **Anti-Cosmo Anti-Cosma**

Love. That one word continues to baffle and repulse me. I'm not even certain I'm allowed to use that term with regards to Timothy.

It's strange, isn't it? I've never been concerned with obeying the rules before. As the supreme ruler of Anti-Fairy World, I've always had free reign over my own actions. Theft, fraud, kidnapping – I've accomplished them all with little to no regrets.

But this … this is my nadir. This is so bizarre, so diabolical, that it disgusts me. I think I have fallen in love, and therefore I have failed as an anti-fairy.

For weeks, I have been neglecting my duties. Every night, I have descended to Earth – more specifically, Dimmsdale, an unassuming town in the United States. I have snuck into the same nondescript white house every time. I have found myself in the same bedroom every time. I am guarding the same boy every time.

I perch on the end of his bed, which is grossly oversized for such a small being as Timothy, and I am transformed. My heart, usually hard and cold, always softens and swells with warmth when I look upon him. And when the morning comes, it saddens me to have to leave him. No, not just that. It terrifies me to leave him. I want to stay in that peaceful moment forever, thereby ensuring that nothing bad will happen to him, but I cannot.

Could this be what love feels like? I honestly wouldn't know. My occupation has usually forbidden such sentiments from coming to the fore. When your _raison d'être_ is bringing about world domination for the rest of your species, making your future slaves fall in love with you is, frankly, not a major concern. This is what makes Timothy so different, so puzzling.

Perhaps the question is not so much "How much do you love him?" as simply "How do you love him?" Perhaps answering this will assist me in organising my thoughts and understanding myself.

Do I love him romantically? Absolutely not. That is my immediate answer, my 'gut instinct,' if you will, so it must be true.

Before I go on, let me clarify this point: I may be an evil genius, but I am not a homophobe. The fact that two partners may both be male is becoming more and more socially acceptable to his American culture. I personally do not see it as a problem, either. It's everything else about Timothy that prevents me harbouring such desires, namely his youth and the absence of black magic in his blood. He is young and pure and good. My, shall we say, _interference_ would defile him. It would destroy the very things that draw me to him nightly.

Do I love him as a son? That instantly seems more fitting. All I want to do is see him smile, watch him grow and make sure he does not die. The latter is my most pressing concern.

When I sit in my study alone and think of Timothy, my primary emotion is not annoyance at his foiling of my past schemes, which is what one would expect of a villain. No, it is fear. I fear for his safety. I fear that one day, his wrathful babysitter will lose control of her chainsaw and kill him, and I will not be there to defend him. I fear that one day, he will make a ridiculous wish that cannot be undone, and I will not be there to talk him out of it.

I suppose it all comes of being the opposite of Cosmo. Ordinarily, people live and learn. That man just lives. He wanders around breaking precious things – vases, promises, hearts – without a second thought. I have to do the fretting for both of us.

It is this juxtaposition which is the root of all my anxiety. If I am capable of such strong affection towards Timothy, what does it say about the attitude of my counterpart and his wife? Do they not care about the lad at all?

Preposterous! Of course they do! The idea that anyone could despise a child so heroic and aesthetically pleasing is nonsensical! No, I don't doubt that they love him. I doubt that they know how to look after him.

Their problem can be summed up in a single word: Poof.

They've been distracted from their godparental duty by that round purple urchin. The baby composed of their own flesh and blood will always be more important than the genetic stranger entrusted to them by what is essentially a lottery. Once, they were so preoccupied with Poof that their godson had to borrow a magic wand and grant his own wishes! It's disgraceful, isn't it? A little boy venturing out with nothing more than a flimsy talisman to keep him safe.

I'm a traditionalist in that respect. I believe in family values. I may be a thief and a fraudster and a kidnapper, but I will never let myself become an irresponsible father. Children need the guidance of their parents, in more ways than one. They need to be protected from the sights and experiences they're not ready for. They need to be disciplined and suitably prepared in advance of the challenges that adulthood brings. They need to be loved and reminded that if they find themselves struggling, they will always have someone to help them through and get them back on their feet. It takes a very skilled person to accomplish all these objectives at once, and I'm sorry to say that Cosmo and Wanda appear to lack these skills.

You might argue that since the birth of Foop, I can be just as distracted by him as Cosmo is by Poof. But remember, we are anti-fairies, and thus our situation is completely different. Foop already sees himself as an independent man. He can fly unaided and talk in full sentences and change his own nappies. He can look after himself. If Timothy was my anti-fairy godchild, Foop would not distract me. Nothing would distract me.

Yes, if Timothy was my godchild, I could give him so much more than those bland, limited fairy godparents. As the author of Da Anti-Fairy Rules (what few rules we have), I could add a new regulation that any stupid wish cannot be granted. That would instantly save us so much heartache. I could give him a makeover, releasing him from the garish pink garb his parents force him to wear even after they realised he wasn't the girl they wanted. I could seal him in my indestructible fortress and send his potential attackers away with a little more than just a flea in their ear. You see, I would not be barred by the fairies' regulation against maiming, injuring, beating and killing. Yes, I would kill for Timothy if there was no other way.

I could do so much more for him than Cosmo and Wanda ever will.

I came close to making this dream a reality at the Fairy World Games. But I fell at the final hurdle. I let my rivalry with HP take over me. I never considered the possibility of Cosmo becoming my biggest threat, and this allowed the lucky nincompoop to win the last gold medal. Standing in third place on the podium, I was overcome with sadness, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why.

Well, now I know why. A part of me had been deliriously excited at the prospect of making Timothy my godchild.

It took a week or two before I could bring myself to admit this, and after I did so, the rest fell into place. A part of me had been despairing at the treatment he received under the bumbling stewardship of Cosmo and Wanda. A part of me had wanted to take him away and make him happy, and this wish had no motive other than … other than what I can only assume is the goodness of my heart, a quality I did not believe I possessed until that moment.

Someday, I'll make an appeal for anti-fairies to be allowed the privilege of becoming godparents. Someday, we'll win the annual bake-off that decides our fate and be rewarded with the guardianship of miserable children across the planet. And then we will be one step away from taking over the world. Children are the future, after all.

(Oh, yes, I'm still the same Anti-Cosmo beneath the pathetic simpering.)

For now, I'll simply be hiding in the shadows, keeping a beady eye on Timothy. I have to, because no-one else will.


	10. Wanda Fairywinkle-Cosma

**Author's Note: Really, how could you ask a question like this and** _ **not**_ **request an answer from Timmy's godparents? I'm starting with Wanda because I've found it easier to write from her point of view than Cosmo's. In this segment, you'll find my attempt to explain the disparity between Wanda's personalities in the** _ **Oh, Yeah! Cartoons**_ **shorts and the main show (look in the fourth paragraph).**

 **I hope you all like this!**

 **Wanda Fairywinkle-Cosma**

There's no one particular reason why I love Timmy. That would be like asking me why I love Poof. To which I would say: I just do! Not because he's cute, or because he's always smiling, or because he hardly ever throws a tantrum, unlike _some_ babies (though those qualities are definite bonuses), but because he's my son.

That's how it is with Timmy as well. I don't love him because he's clever, or because he makes me laugh, or because whenever he apologises, he means it. I love him because he's my godson. It's as simple as that.

I don't believe in love at first sight. How can you adore someone you don't even know? You have to interact. You have to find out their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears, their strengths and weaknesses, before you reach the point where you could possibly fall in love with them. That's the process I went through with Cosmo. My first impression of him was hardly stellar – he ran me over with his car! It wasn't until after I'd kept bumping into him at high school and at the diner that I saw the sweeter side of him and realised how much I wanted to be with him.

I went through a similar process with Timmy. When we were first assigned to him, I tried to be friendly and just a little bit silly, as I am with any kid who needs to relax and be reassured. As time went by, I learned which aspects he responded better to. I could tailor my reactions, my whole personality, to be exactly the kind of parent Timmy required: caring but firm. He was pretty adventurous and needed boundaries, but he also needed the affection and attention that his real parents didn't have the time to give.

I still make mistakes sometimes; there are days when I can read him like a book and days when the situation is as clear as mud. There have been plenty of times when he's called me a nag and ignored my advice and got himself into trouble because of it. But I haven't given up. That's not what you do when you love someone.

It's because we've spent longer with Timmy and come to know him better that we feel more responsible for him than for any other godchild. We want to see him smile. We want to help him learn from his mistakes. We want to keep him safe. Which is easier said than done, because there's a lot we have to keep him safe from.

Take his babysitter. What can I say about her that hasn't already been said? She lies to everyone she meets. She wreaks havoc and blames it on whoever's unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She lives to spread pain and misery as far and wide as she can. You can't spell "Vicky" without "icky".

And yet, in some strange way, I suppose I should thank that woman. Without her, we would never have met Timmy.

Of course, this love isn't just about what I'm trying to do for him. It's about what he's done for us. He's the one who saved us from Mr Crocker's clutches. He's the one who gave us Poof and brought a bundle of joy into our lives. But it's not all about daring escapes and world-changing wishes. There are plenty of little things which remind us how much he appreciates us. He cleans out the fishbowl without being asked. He surprises us by leaving out plates of chocolate (for me) and red meat (for Cosmo), even when there's no special occasion to celebrate. He does it because he wants to.

He's part of the family.

Almost.

Sometimes I forget he's only human.

One day, Vicky was taunting him with her shiny new mace. (Where does she get these weapons? The Internet, probably.) She was chasing him all over the house, doing everything she could to scare him, and he tripped over his own feet trying to get away and … he fell down the stairs. That image of him at the bottom – tears in his eyes, limbs bent at odd angles, clothes stained by his blood – will haunt me for years. He's been through so much for us, so much because of us, that I almost forget how vulnerable he is.

Until something like that happens.

He quickly wished away all the injuries so Vicky wouldn't get in trouble, so she could still babysit him, so he could keep seeing us. I don't know how I feel about that. It's great that we've been together for so long. It's great that he wants us to stay together for even longer. But does he have to go through so much turmoil to make that happen? Why does Vicky never have to suffer the consequences of her actions?

Maybe it would be better if Timmy let his parents see Vicky's true colours. If he let the cops send her to prison. If he let the misery out of his life. Sure, if he did that, we would have to leave, too, and it would be tough on him. But I think I would rather leave knowing he's safe and happy than stay precisely because he's in pain and crying. It's not nice to see your loved ones be sad.

Besides, I know we'll have to say goodbye sooner or later. No kid needs a babysitter forever. No kid has the same fairy-obsessed teacher forever. No kid can be bullied forever. At least, I hope they can't.

But we've hung around for so long! The thought of wiping his mind of any trace of us, the thought of him forgetting how much he means to us, the thought that all of this doesn't even matter … it just breaks my heart.

When you start training to be a fairy godparent, Jorgen always warns you not to get attached to your godchild. But you do. Of course you do. You can't help it.

And I can tell you now that the day we disappear from Timmy's life will be the worst day in my 768,321 years of experience.


	11. Cosmo Cosma

**Author's Note: And here's the second story from the godparents' point of view, because Cosmo and Wanda should never be alone. I tried to capture some of his fun-loving personality, but what I ended up with was a slightly out-of-character bout of anxiety and depression. Ah, well. That's the thing about writing – it's great to plan, but sometimes you have to expect the unexpected. Nevertheless, I hope you like this segment as much as Wanda's!**

 **As for Jet Engine's suggestion that I write about Foop: he didn't immediately spring to mind when I thought of people Timmy is shipped with. Then again, Timmy did seem to have a crush on his female alter ego in "Blue Angel", so … I'll think about it.**

 **Cosmo Cosma**

If I made a list of people I loved, Wanda would be at the top, and Timmy and Poof would come in joint second place.

I think.

Is that right? Should Poof be higher? Should Wanda be lower? But nothing else feels right.

Wait, _is_ there a right answer? Or is this one of those questions you're not meant to reply to? You know, rhe – rhe – rhetorical! That's it! Is this like that?

I don't know anything anymore.

What was I talking about? Oh, right, Timmy. He's a good kid. His hat is pink! Um … what else can I say about him? I could look for a big fancy word to sum him up, but I don't think I'll find one.

Hey, you know what's great about Timmy? We have so much in common! He's always looking for the fun stuff in life, and I do all I can to help him find it. He's great at telling jokes, and I'm great at laughing at them. We're more like buddies than father and son. We make a good team.

I think I love him because he's a bit like me, but not too much like me. He's less stupid. He knows what numbers are and why you shouldn't touch a hot stove. He's a useful person for a dunderhead like me to have around.

But he's still pretty destructive. If he gets a wish even slightly wrong, it could be fatal. We've had some very close calls. Like the time he wished Vicky was nice, and the evil bug living in her butt was headed for the President. Or the time he wished people would eat nothing but dessert, and the Earth got so heavy it was on a collision course with the Sun. They seemed like nice ideas, but in practice they were terrible.

And if you thought reality-altering wishes were hard, they're nothing compared to getting things back to normal. It's like that story about the guy who rips open a pillow, spreads feathers all over the city, and then gets told he has to put them back in the pillow. He just can't do it. You can't undo things. Well, I could, probably, but it really sucks the energy out of me. It's exhausting trying to keep us all on track.

Is that why I've had this weird brain drain? Is that why I can't do anything right lately? Is that why I'm so clumsy and snappy?

You see, sometimes, when I'm tired, I leak. Sometimes a bolt shoots out of my hand and makes something happen. A chair might turn into a table, or one of Poof's toys might turn into a wolverine. Usually, though, it's small stuff, too small for me to notice. But Wanda does, and she warns me when it's happening. And what do I do? I snap at her.

I don't mean to. She's just doing her job. She's just trying to stop me getting hurt, or hurting Poof or Timmy. But when you're tired, when your head is pounding and your eyelids are drooping, you don't always think before you speak.

So I call her a nag, and her face changes. The eyes widen a little. The mouth opens a little. And then she deflates, like she's giving up on me. I can't keep doing that to her. We can't keep this up for much longer. It's killing our marriage.

And it's all Timmy's fault! If he didn't make all those wishes and then unwish them, I wouldn't keep doing that to my wife!

No, it's not Timmy's fault. That's mean. He can't help it. He's not the sort of kid who hatches evil plans to wreck marriages.

It's my fault. It's all me. I'm the one who spoils everything. Timmy may make the wishes, but I'm the one who grants them. Buddies are great, but so are dads. Timmy deserves better. He deserves a godfather who isn't a moron, a godfather who knows what he's doing, a godfather who can actually control his own magic.

With a record like mine, it's amazing that Jorgen thought he could still trust us with _another_ godchild.

Things have changed since Chloe joined our fairy family. Even I can see that. Chloe is everything Timmy isn't. Chloe is either excited or stressed. Timmy tends to take things in his stride. (A whale falls through the ceiling? No big deal. It happens.) Chloe looks for the best in others. Timmy's been jaded by people like Vicky and Mr Crocker and Francis and his parents, and by his own wishes. Chloe's always trying to make the world a better place. Timmy doesn't remember there's a world outside his bedroom. He barely even sees his best friends anymore. What were their names again? Chucky and Abe? Charlie and Arthur? If Timmy hung out with them more, I'd remember.

I know it doesn't look like it, but I've been thinking a lot. About Chloe and Timmy and what it all means. Maybe we've been smothering him too much. Maybe I've taken him on too many crazy adventures, and now he can't appreciate the quiet, normal stuff. Maybe we need to back off and let him live in reality. Maybe he needs to let us go.

But just because he needs it doesn't mean he wants it. It doesn't mean I want it, either. You don't spend a year living in a boy's fishbowl without starting to feel something for him. There's going to be a Timmy-shaped void in our lives when we have to go. We're going to choke up whenever we see a pink hat.

But what other choice do we have? Sooner or later, I'm going to kill him. I turned my Papa into a fly and he was never seen again – who's to say I can't destroy a child? Jorgen shouldn't just have banned babies after I did that. He should have put me in a butterfly net and never let me out. Then we wouldn't be in this mess. Then I wouldn't be so scared.

Because I am. I'm scared of myself. I'm scared of my powers. I'm falling apart. I'm restless. I can't focus on anything. I keep leaking magic and making mistakes. I keep having to fix them. I tire myself out with all that, and then I can't concentrate, and then the worries go round and round in my head, and then something else bad happens because I'm not concentrating, and then Wanda barks at me to make it better, and then I'm even more tired, and it all goes round and round in a circle and it keeps hitting people as it passes them and it keeps breaking them in the same place and I don't like it!

I don't want Timmy to get hurt because of me.

I don't know what to do.

And yet … I'm not going to leave him, or Wanda or Poof. I'm not going to give up. Because whatever's going on in my head, something magical happens around Timmy. All it takes is a smile when we help him out to make me feel better. All it takes is a sigh of relief after we've saved his life to make me relax and remember why I decided to become a godparent.

No matter what I'm going through, Timmy makes it better. I used to think it was just supposed to be the other way around, that I was supposed to make him feel happier and not expect anything in return. Well, maybe it can work both ways.

Maybe that's true love.


	12. The Darkness (or Deanna Dee Nesbitt)

**Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who's made a suggestion! I'm taking it all on board and I'll see what I can do.**

 **A Guest reviewer requested this a while ago (in October, in fact), and now it's finally here! This chapter was also partially inspired by one of my other fanfics, "This Little Light of Mine". It's been months since I finished that story – I'd forgotten how fun it is to write for the Darkness. It's not totally necessary to read that story before you read this, but if you want to check it out afterwards, you're more than welcome to! Enjoy!**

 **The Darkness (a.k.a. Deanna "Dee" Nesbitt)**

Before I answer that question in full, you have to understand my background.

The others around me were truly despicable. Whenever I approached an unexplored realm, eager to find a friend, I was greeted with grating screams, and I could only watch as hordes of people ran in the opposite direction. Worse than them, though, were those who returned, sharpening their swords, loading their guns, charging their magic wands. And the pain! It wasn't enough that they sliced me open; they had to keep going, keep bludgeoning the wounds and laughing as they grew and grew. Well, they weren't laughing when I consumed their homes along with everything and everyone in them.

Yes, the others were hateful little creatures. But Timmy Turner was not like the others.

I had the surprise of my life down in that concert hall. The so-called Chosen One appeared not to be … well, he was not quite the warrior I had expected. He was not a tall and stately man, but a boy who only just reached the height of his father's knees. His chest was not heaving with heavy muscles, but slender and trembling violently with a thudding heartbeat. His eyes did not blaze with bravado when he saw me, but widened in fright.

And yet his weapon was the most painful of all.

Light.

The beams from that enchanted guitar scorched my entrails, more than any projectile that had come before. Where a layer of dirt once lingered, the light scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, cleaning me while leaving me sore and tingling all over. I had to fly away before he hurt me any more.

As I recuperated just outside the galaxy, I realised what he had done for me. He had banished some of the murk that once contaminated me. He had opened out some space inside me for hope – that long-forgotten quality – to take root and flourish. He had not just tried to make me happier. He had tried to make me a better person.

Intentional or not, it meant a great deal to me.

I stayed on the rim of his life for weeks afterwards. I followed him from Earth to Fairy World and back again, day after day, observing and noting everything: his interactions with his parents, his quests to escape his babysitter, his curious behaviour around his "goldfish". For much of the time, he and the fairies were prematurely celebrating his victory against me. Occasionally, though, there were quieter moments. Moments when he avoided his teacher's gaze as another F was doled out. Moments when he brushed off the dirt after a beating on the playground. Moments when the expectation of a fun evening with his parents led to disappointment. Moments when he locked the door and tried to recover after having narrowly missed the blade of the redhead's axe.

It was in this moments that I think I saw his true self. He didn't retaliate. I had, frequently. Many a planet has crumbled through my sheer force. Timmy Turner possessed more self-control. He walked away, stored the memories in a secret corner of his mind and only brought it up to his fairies. And when his attempts to change things went awry, he didn't hesitate to reset the situation. He didn't struggle on and make things worse.

He was smaller than me, and yet he was the bigger person. He was not much brighter than me in terms of intelligence, and yet much brighter in terms of virtue.

Nevertheless, we were similar in one respect. We were both unique. We were both a little weaker, a little more delicate, quite unlike the bullies around us. No-one fully understood either of us.

Knowing this shared trait filled me with joy. It lifted me up and could have easily sent me blissfully spiralling into the farthest corners of the universe, without a care in the world. However, even this feeling was tinged with anger, an anger seething at the edges like a witch's cauldron. How dare these people treat him like this! How dare his godparents float off to one side and do nothing!

I did not agree with all the principles of the fairy godparenting scheme. "Yes, we will come to you and grant your every wish and put a smile on your face, but only if you endure the blows of a sadistic attacker." I did not want it to be the case that Timmy Turner could only have friends because he was miserable. A love that lasts only for as long as a babysitter tortures you surely cannot be a stable, enduring love at all. I could shower him in a more potent affection, untainted by another's cruelty. I could cradle him within me, enveloping him in tenderness. He would feel no sharp injury, only the downy softness of my inner form.

I could be the doting parent he had never received.

When the Sun dipped below the horizon and the man-made lamps were reluctantly switched off, I could slip closer to him without being noticed. I could linger in the gloom of his bedroom, counting the rises and falls of his chest as he slumbered. Oh, I was sorely tempted to snatch him there and then, to gobble him up, to lock him in my heart and never let him out. But I resisted. I simply could not subject him to the confusion of awaking inside a foreign body, or to the fear and despair that would arise from waiting and waiting for a retrieval that never came. To see his face scrunched up in such negative expressions would be unbearable. No, if I was to have Timmy Turner, I would need to let him come willingly.

I have to admit, I was not in the best frame of mind when I finally took him. Looming over his comrades on the Blue Moon, my cries were cries of desperation. I called his name again and again, in one final move to achieve my lifelong dream.

And it worked. He ignored his friends and family when they implored him to return. Timmy Turner threw himself into me, and I was only too happy to sweep him deeper into my core and take off, leaving his old life behind.

He resisted me at first. It was only to be expected. Once the adrenaline of the sacrificial manoeuvre had worn off, he made it plain that he wouldn't want to stay for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, he didn't have much choice. There was nowhere to go where I couldn't reach him, nowhere to hide where I wouldn't be. Why would he want to leave, anyway? Why would he want to return to his negligent parents, to a vicious nanny, to the guardians who were destined to abandon him at an arbitrary age?

He had no answer to these questions.

Even in the depths of the shadowy void, he glowed. Even though his consent to remain was very reluctantly given, he threw out his restorative rays. His mere presence transformed me. I was no longer something scary called "the Darkness" that had to be fled from – I was a friend called Dee, who could tell jokes and bring gifts and speak in a tone of voice that soothed minds and raised spirits. After over ten thousand years by myself, I had someone to care for and protect, and that made all the difference.

He was my baby, and I was the womb. He was a secret to everyone but me. He was my precious little light.

And all too quickly, he was snuffed out.

Just as I reached the zenith of my joy, he was wrenched from my grip.

Who knew a single moment of carelessness could have so dear a cost?

I will wait for him. I will lure him away from his so-called rescuers. I will talk to him and remind him of how much comfort I could bring him.

I will do all I can to rekindle the flame.


	13. Poof Fairywinkle-Cosma

**Author's Note: After a long time spent on other stories, I've come back to this one to try something a little different – partially inspired by Butch Hartman's "Fairly OddParents 10 Years Later" YouTube video. This chapter is from Poof's point of view, but I didn't think I'd get much sense out of a baby, so I've moved things twenty years forward in time. That would make Timmy thirty years old. I hope you enjoy it! Please read and review!**

 **Poof Fairywinkle-Cosma**

Uh, hello? He's my big brother. He's the reason I exist! How much do you think I love him?

We had a connection. When he grew up, I grew up. Apparently, that's a really unusual thing for fairies to do. Ageing happens by choice rather than by nature. Before I was born, becoming the first member of the Next Generation (as Billy Crystal Ball calls it), babies used to be babies for many years; instead of the Terrible Twos, you would have the Terrible Two Thousands. But I aged much more quickly.

Maybe, subconsciously, I wanted to keep up with Timmy. I wanted to do all the things my cooler big brother was doing. I wanted to read his comic books and play his video games. I wanted to be able to listen to scary stories without squealing and swimming away and hiding in the fishbowl's purple plastic castle.

Timmy helped me to do all those things and more. He was the best.

Chloe was okay, I guess, but she didn't need us for long. She had to move away to the other side of the country when she was thirteen, and it wasn't practical to have one godparent in California and the other in Rhode Island. Mom and Dad kept fighting because someone needed to look after me and they didn't want to unsettle me by dragging me across the country over and over again. Timmy and Chloe kept fighting over the phone because they could never remember whose turn it was to put up with Mom's nagging or Dad's recklessness.

To be honest, I was a little relieved when Chloe matured and forgot all about us. She still wrote to Timmy, but they were regular pen pals rather than squabbling godchildren. Everything was so much easier.

I say, "Easier," but things could get pretty crazy, pretty quickly. Almost every day brought another adventure. Wishes went wrong, evil plans had to be foiled, and there were plenty of times when we feared for our lives. It was amazing! I never wanted it to end.

Sadly, it did.

The day we all said goodbye to Timmy was the worst day ever. Mom was trying to give her godson some last-minute life lessons, but her voice kept cracking. Dad cried so much that he flooded the bedroom and Jorgen had to poof the water away. Compared to them, I was holding myself together.

Until Timmy gave me his hat.

I couldn't take it. That pink hat was one of the things that would always be connected to Timmy, along with his buck teeth. If I took it, it wouldn't be right. But he pushed it back at me when I tried to return it. "It's yours now," he said. "You can have a little piece of me forever. I know I won't be needing it anymore."

We did a lot of hugging and a lot of crying before Jorgen sighed and tore us apart.

As we were sucked into the electric-blue vortex, I watched the Forgeticin work its cruel magic. A wind pressed against Timmy's back and pulled the colours and sounds out of his mind. I was blinded by a yellow glare in my left eye and a blue glow in my right eye. I could hear, "Cosmo, you idiot!" and "Poof, poof!" and "I wish…" over and over again, with all the voices trying to drown each other out. The flashes of purple and green and red became more and more rapid the further away we travelled.

The next thing I knew, we were in Fairy World. Timmy's memories of us drifted down onto the pink cloud supporting the buildings – and then they faded away.

There was silence. The ordeal was over. We had to move on.

But that didn't stop me sneaking out of school, flying down to his house and knocking on his door. It was a couple of days before he left for college. We'd been separated for a month and I couldn't get him off my mind. Losing him was like losing a part of my body. I couldn't function without him. I wanted there to be some way of jogging his memory.

He was wearing a football jacket when he opened the door, even though I knew he didn't play the game.

"Timmy!" I said. "It's me, Poof!"

"Poof?" He raised an eyebrow. "What kind of name is that?"

"The kind of name that only _you_ could come up with."

He blinked a couple of times. "What?"

"I'm your brother!" I blurted out. "Don't you remember me?"

"I don't have a brother."

By now the sweat was making my shirt stick to my skin. "What about Cosmo and Wanda? Do you remember them?"

"I think you've got the wrong house, kid. Maybe Dinkleberg can help you."

He turned away.

"Wait!"

He slammed the door in my face.

After about three seconds, a fog lowered around me. It still hasn't fully lifted, and it's been twelve years.

Timmy – my big brother – doesn't remember me. That's the part about leaving him that I hate the most. He doesn't remember anything about us. Not the good times. Not the scary times. Not the wacky times. Not the cosy times. There's no way of getting through to him. It's as if we meant nothing to him. My heart is torn to pieces whenever I think about him.

I've spent the past twelve years in Fairy World, never going back down to Earth, concentrating on getting an education and ignoring the gaping hole in our family where my brother should be. Luckily, with everything changing around us, I don't have too much time to sit alone and dwell on the past.

More and more kids are being born. More and more secret changelings have been exposed. The newspapers are packed with the same old worries about too many people applying for too few jobs in places where there aren't enough houses to buy. The magical realms are teeming with life and magic and chaos, and I'm at the centre, the one who set it off.

Mom and Dad want to keep out of it all; they've got their own place in a corner of Fairy World away from the hustle and bustle of the baby boom. They retired the day after leaving Timmy. I think they'd spent so long with him that it ruined their chances with any other kid. These days they're pretending to be normal human parents, sitting in rocking chairs on the porch and watching the world go by and stuff like that. They've been experimenting with their ageing enchantments, too. Dad's spell went wrong, so he's stuck with a receding hairline. "Chicks dig that, right?" he asked. He took Mom's eye roll as a 'Yes.'

I've grown up, too. I'm twenty years old. Foop may have done a little better at school, but I'm the one with the skills in magic and sports. I've also got more friends than him, and they'll always have my back.

That sounds pretty boastful, doesn't it? But I'm far from perfect. When fairies and anti-fairies look at me, they see things belonging to other people. In my hair, they see Mom's swirl and Dad's spikes and Timmy's hat. In my clothes, they see Mom's yellow shirt and Dad's black tie and Timmy's blue pants. I've absorbed bits and pieces from everybody else without creating my own identity. I don't know who I really am.

But I do know what I want to do with my life. I want to be a godfather. Timmy may have no idea who we were, but if we've helped him go beyond the rough childhood that should have held him back, then it was totally worth it. I wish I could do that for other children. It would be great for them to get the kind of experience that Timmy's had.

He's settled down now. He works for Pencil Nexus, just like his dad before him. He's married to Tootie, the geeky girl who used to have thick glasses and pigtails that defied gravity. (I always thought Trixie was prettier, but I guess Tootie wasn't such a bad person when she toned down the stalking.) Being with her is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because Tammy and Tommy have a loving mother. It's a bad thing because Icky Vicky is now their aunt, babysitter and executioner.

I know all this because in Fairy World, there's a TV channel dedicated to following Timmy around. (Hey, he'd kept his godparents for longer than any other kid. Quite a few magical beings are interested in him.) We've all seen how happy he is with Tootie and Tammy and Tommy. We've all seen how miserable the twins are when they're doing the monotonous chores while Aunt Vicky lies on the couch yelling at them.

Maybe it's time for Cosmo and Wanda Fairywinkle-Cosma to come out of retirement.

No, maybe it's time for _Poof_ Fairywinkle-Cosma to prove himself. Maybe I can be there for Tammy and Tommy in the same way Mom and Dad were there for Timmy.


End file.
